Music Sound

Ambient industrial
Stylistic origins:	Ambient music Industrial music Noise music
Cultural origins:	1980s-1990s, United Kingdom
Typical instruments:	Electronic musical instruments, Sampler, field recordings
Mainstream popularity:	Low
Derivative forms:	Dark ambient
Subgenres
Ambient noise

Ambient industrial is a hybrid genre of ambient and industrial music; the term industrial being used in the original experimental sense, rather than in the sense of industrial metal or EBM. Ambient industrial makes use of Industrial principles such as use of anti-music, extra-musical elements and shock tactics, but wields these elements with more subtlety. Additionally, ambient industrial often has strong occultist tendencies, with a particular leaning toward Chaos Magick (the image of the Black Sun is one that comes up repeatedly in post-Industrial music), often giving the music a highly ritualistic flavor.

Ambient industrial is one of several directions that post-Industrial music took on after the breakup of Throbbing Gristle (the founders of Industrial as an art movement) in 1981 ended the Industrial period proper. Indeed, the last material that TG recorded, at least in the studio, Journey Through a Body and In the Shadow of the Sun, was ambient industrial work and pointed to the direction that several of TG's offshoots (most notably Coil and CTI) would take.

Among the many artists who work in this area are Coil, CTI, Lustmord, Hafler Trio, Nocturnal Emissions, Zoviet France, PGR, Thomas Köner, Controlled Bleeding, and Deutsch Nepal. It is important to note, however, that many of these artists are very eclectic in their output, with much of it falling outside of ambient industrial per se.

A "typical" ambient industrial work (if there is a such thing) might consist of evolving dissonant harmonies of metallic drones and resonances, extreme low frequency rumbles and machine noises, perhaps supplemented by gongs, percussive rhythms, bullroarers, distorted voices and/or anything else the artist might care to sample (often processed to the point where the original sample is no longer recognizable). Entire works may be based on radio telescope recordings (Arecibo Trans-Plutonian Transmissions), the babbling of newborn babies (Nocturnal Emissions Mouths of Babes), or sounds recorded through contact microphones on telegraph wires (Alan Lamb's Primal Image).

Ambient noise

Ambient noise is a subgenre involving the construction of "noisescapes", that is, soundscapes created out of walls of extreme noise. Closely related to noise music and power electronics, this anti-music may not strike the uninitiated listener as being very close to ambient music. To those more familiar with noise, these works have a distinct ambient quality that distinguishes them from the harsh noise of Merzbow or Whitehouse. An example would be the distorted low-frequency/high-volume sonics of Daniel Menche, which are evocative of the cthonic sounds of a subway tunnel, an underground boiler-room in a factory, or the afterburner of a jet engine. Other examples of ambient noise would be works by Aube, Arcane Device, some work by NON, and some of PGR's collaborations with noise artists like Merzbow.

Sound samples

• "Guest + Host = Ghost" by CTI and Boyd Rice, from CORE, 1988. (30 seconds, 1.5 MB, File Info)

See also

• Dark ambient